Choriz Upma for President!

I love choriz. The Goan variety - full of spices and flavour and nuggets of fat. Among porky ingredients it's my favourite and I fool around with it a lot, adding it to this and that seeing if the combination works. This Choriz Upma is one my great successes.

I often eat meals on my own and it goes without saying that I tend to make simple one-pot dishes whenever I can. Nonta Suji as we Bengalis call our version of upma, is loaded with vegetables and has a mild tempering of nigella seeds. I used to cook this very often for mom in the later stages of her illness as she found the soft texture of the dish easy to eat. Nonta Suju features on my meals on my own quite often and in pursuit of a variation I decided to try it with a good handful of choriz thrown in. It was one of my best ideas, even if I say so myself!

Choriz Upma

20 links of Goan choriz, peeled
1 small potato, cut into matchsticks
1 small carrot, cut into small pieces or matchsticks
1 small green capsicum, chopped into thick juliennes
1 onion, sliced
a handful of green peas
1 green chilli, chopped
2 tbsp tomato puree or ketchup
1/2 cup roasted rava/semolina
salt
oil
chilli powder

In your wok or kadhai heat a little oil and fry the choriz till it breaks down and has rendered off all the fat. Remove the choriz leaving behind as much of the oil/fat as you can.

Discard some of this oil/fat if there's too much and then fry the potatoes and carrots along with the green chilli in the remaining oil/fat in your kadhai. Keep the heat low and cover the veggies while they cook. When the potatoes are half cooked add the sliced onion and stir. Cook till the onions become translucent.

Add the julienned capsicum and the green peas and cook for another couple of minutes. If you're using fresh peas boil them before adding them in. Add salt and chilli powder and stir to mix. Then add the roasted semolina and stir over a low flame. Roast the semolina with the veggie mix for a couple of minutes without scorching or burning the semolina.

Put the fried choriz back into the kadhai. Reserve a little to sprinkle on top of the finished dish if you like.  Add enough water to just cover and the tomato puree/ketchup and give it all a good stir. The semolina will start absorbing the water so keep stirring.

Once the upma has reached the consistency you like switch off the heat and serve it hot.

Mixed Millet Pullao with Goan Choriz

Challenges add flavour to life and this is something I'm beginning to appreciate even more after I participated in the Commeat Recipe Challenge with KitchenAid India. This challenge, spread over five weeks, had five well known people from the food blogging and writing world with each one setting a challenge every week.

The first challenge was set by Bangalore blogger Neha Mathur and her challenge was "cook something innovative with millets". Now, the thing is, I've led a fairly sheltered life as far as food is concerned and have only recently been formally introduced to millets. There was no rush of creativity and I was quite stymied. The only thing I'd made with millets was a sort of pullao with assorted vegetables and that didn't seem particularly creative or even worthy of the challenge. As I mulled over pullao possibilities and tried to think of something beyond the obvious, I settled on making a choriz pullao using millets in place of rice.

25 Goan Choriz links (for stock) 

25 Goan Choriz links 

1 cup Mixed millets 

1 Onion sliced 

4 cloves Garlic chopped 

1 Green capsicum 

1 Potato 

Salt 

Oil

Dry roast the millets in a frying pan over medium heat till they give out a fragrant toasty smell.
Peel the choriz reserved for the stock and boil in 2 cups of water for a few minutes till the meat is cooked. Strain the meat and reserve the liquid stock.

Cube the potatoes and chop the capsicum into half inch sized pieces.

Heat oil in a pan and fry the potatoes over medium heat till they are cooked. Be careful not to over-brown them.

Add the sliced onions to the pan and fry for a further couple of minutes. Add the garlic too.

Now add the drained choriz meat along with the chopped capsicum, mix well and fry for another minute.

Peel the remaining choriz links and add it all to the pan. Cook over medium heat letting the fat render from the choriz. You can cover the pan at this stage and let it cook for a few minutes. 
Add salt allowing for the millets you will add later.

Remove approximately one quarter of this mix to a bowl and keep aside.

Now add the toasted millets to the pan and mix everything properly. Pour in the choriz stock and once it boils reduce the heat and let the millets absorb all the liquid in the pan.

Cover the pan and let it rest for five minutes. Then fluff up the grains with a fork, garnish with the reserved vegetable and choriz mix and serve your millets and choriz pullao hot.

We thoroughly enjoyed the pullao and, in fact, the hubby had seconds too. And that's not all - my recipe won a prize! Now I have a stylish ice cream scoop from KitchenAid poshing up my small tools drawer.

Goan Choriz in Instant Noodles - Comfort Food at its Best

If you've lived in a hostel it's more or less guaranteed that you've experimented with instant noodles. Maggi and other brands were the backbone of our meals, especially if one wanted options apart from Mess food! Assorted vegetables, ketchup, chilly and other sauces, spices, pickle masalas, anything and everything was pressed into service to add zing and flavour and even body to the basic noodles.

I spent many happy years living the hostel life and one of the best things that emerged from those years is my concoction of instant noodles with Goan choriz. Slightly soupy, the thick and spicy sauce coats every strand of noodle punctuated with chunks of the fat and meat of the choriz beads - heaven in a bowl!  The unique flavours of this local Goan sausage are the foundation of this dish. The cheese slices cut the sharpness from the spices of the choriz and give the sauce a wonderful roundness.

I made some for my lunch today and my friend M pinged me to ask for the recipe. I confidently told her to look it up here on the blog. And then I thought why not dig out the recipe myself and send her the link. That's when I discovered, much to my horror, that I haven't written about it. You cannot imagine my shock!

Anyway, let me fill this terrible lacuna right away. Better late than never, correct? So here goes...

Noodles with Goan Choriz

Instant noodles - Maggi or any other
Goan choriz sausage - approximately 15 to 20 beads, peeled
1 small onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
2 slices Britannia Cheese
tomato ketchup
oil

In a pan fry the onions and garlic till just brown. Remove the onions to a plate.

In the same pan add enough water to cook the noodles. Add the flavouring spice that came with the noodles now.

Add the choriz and let it boil in the spiced water for a few minutes.

Break the noodles up a little and add to the pan. Let them cook fully.

Add the fried onions and garlic, a good splash of ketchup and the cheese slices. Stir to mix.

Reduce the liquid to the consistency to the consistency you like and serve.

I usually make a big bowlful and then get comfy in a big chair and enjoy it with a good book. The perfect dish for a solitary lunch.  No. I don't share. 

Gurgaon - Gluttony and Gender Issues

I spent a wonderful 10 odd days being spoiled silly by my sis in law and my cousin. They have a lovely new home in one of the innumerable towers that dot the Gurgaon landscape and I enjoyed a long overdue holiday with them. One thing that unites all three of us is our unending love for good food and our constant search for new places to eat, new flavours to try out. And Gurgaon is simply bursting at the seams with options for the die hard foodaholic.

From road side momo joints to swanky restaurants that serve endless lunch buffets that include cuisines from around the world, Gurgaon covers it all. Goan, Bengali, Korean, Udupi, classic American fast food, Italian, you name it, it's there somewhere! And if it hasn't got there yet, rest assured, it's coming soon.

Among the meals that really stood out were the Goan lunch at Bernardo's tucked away on the first floor of the Galleria shopping centre. Roast pork, prawns recheado, spicy Goan style fried liver, pork vindaloo, mutton Xacuti, we had it all, perfectly rounded off with a helping of that queen among desserts, the  deeply sensuous layered Bebinca.

Then there was Love & Mustard - a brightly lit restaurant with a cheerful colour filled atmosphere and an extensive menu offering many traditional Bengali treats. It had been a long day and we were not at our 'eager to eat' best. However, the food was so good that we found ourselves revived and licking our plates. We ordered Alu'r dom with luchi, Polau with kosha mangsho, and chicken chaamp with triangle porota. All was perfect except that what they passed off as polau was, in fact, biryani rice. Not that it tasted bad, it just wasn't   what we'd ordered or expected.  Love & Mustard is also in the same Galleria mall.

Another memorable meal was Gung the Palace, a Korean restaurant in Gurgaon that also has a branch in Green Park, Delhi. This was one occasion where I wished I knew more about the cuisine so I could eat things in the correct combinations and sequence to do full justice to the meal and to appreciate it correctly too. However ignorance did not get in the way of enjoyment and we feasted on the best Barbecued Pork Belly I have ever eaten, accompanied by Spicy Calamari and a wonderful light Kimchi fried rice. This might not sound like a lot but with a Korean meal you get such a huge variety of little side dishes that include pickled vegetables, and a fabulous fish stock and greens soup, that you really eat like a king.

The portions are huge and are usually for four.You can ask the staff for help while you order and they will happily guide you through the unfamiliar sounding names of the dishes. The menu card has pictures and descriptions to help you along anyway. To really enjoy Gung, go in a group. And if you can't rustle up a group, go anyway.

The best food was at home. Classic Bengali home fare. Seasonal vegetables, daal cooked in different ways, and an endless variety of fish! The heart and soul were as sated as my rapidly expanding tummy. Ruti torkari for breakfast reminded me of summer holidays in Kolkata at my Father's house where Jethima (aunt) would make different vegetables every morning for breakfast, to be eaten with rotis or parathas or, sometimes, with hot fluffy luchis. Ah, the Bengalis do eat well!

We spent an incredible evening at the imposing Red Fort and also caught the Son et Lumière show there.

After wandering around the extensive grounds admiring the remains and imagining the grandeur that once was, we were ready to head out for a good meal. Karim's was legendary and so we set forth. It was unbelievably crowded and we ended up sharing a table with a group of young boys. The seating was cramped, we were tired and the meal was rushed. Somehow, you cannot enjoy the finer things of life with people breathing down your neck waiting to grab your table. Maybe some other day, but this time Karim's was not worth its legendary name.

This trip was also about catching up with friends - friends I knew in the real world and some who were from the virtual world and some from Mumbai who happened to be there in Gurgaon at the same time. I also made new friends on a foodie group on Facebook and it these new friends who told me where to eat, what to order and what I simply should not miss. Thanks everyone at Chef at Large on Facebook :)

Rushina invited me to dinner one evening where I met a wonderful mix of bloggers, architects, businessmen, and home stay owners. There I met Purba Ray, a blogger, who told me about her experience with the local police when she went to report her stolen purse. The Gurgaon mall rape cases were fresh in everyone's minds and the attitude that the police have towards victims is unbelievable, and Purba was unfortunate enough to find out for herself just how badly the police treat a woman who has come in to ask for help.

I met Manjula, my friend from college, over coffee one morning. She lives in Gurgaon too and we also talked about men, attitudes, how safe a woman can feel in Gurgaon even in the daytime, and a whole lot of frivolous things too. The next day I read this wonderful piece that she wrote about a new product for women.

It's not just Gurgaon that suffers this malaise. My friend is looking for a swimming pool that she can use daily. She went to the YMCA pool in Belapur to find out their timings, rates, etc., and she was confronted with a big board displaying "appropriate dress for women using the pool". Why is a woman seen as an amoral creature for whom the law has to be laid down? There was no board showing "appropriate dress for men using the pool" there. So if a man wants to wear very brief swimming trunks a la John Abraham in Dostana, that is fine, but a woman has to wear a one piece bathing suit with sleeves and, hold your breath, bicycling shorts underneath! I'm sure the pool authorities do not guarantee a woman safety if she comes dressed as prescribed. If anything untoward were to happen, they would blame it on her wet clothes, I'm sure.

Where does this incredible attitude come from? And what are we doing to change it? If you have a son teach him.  It's not the daughters we need to stifle, it's the sons we need to teach.